“Survey says…”

No, this isn’t Family Feud. We are not hosting an entertaining game show where we reveal the top 5 nightmare requests that every school PR person fears of receiving this school year!

“I need you to make a video for…”

Oh, the chills that just ran up your spine!

No, this is a helpful article to share the results of a recent survey #SocialSchool4EDU conducted to learn more about school communicators from across the country. We had 465 responses come in by mid-July of 2022. WOW! So if you participated, thank you!!

The focus of our survey was social media, which is a key component to every school communicator’s job responsibility. So in today’s blog, we are breaking down the results and sharing key takeaways. The goal is to provide you with insight that other social media managers are dealing with right now. Hopefully, you will feel more connected!

 

Type of School

• 79% Public School
• 15% Private School
• 3% Charter School
• 3% Other

Our feedback was dominated by public schools. They represented 79% of respondents. We had 15% identify as private schools. You can just keep this in mind with the rest of the data, knowing that it is heavily leaning toward public school feedback. But I think when it comes to social media, the focuses and struggles remain similar (such a enrollment), as many public schools deal with open enrollment options for students within their state.

Job Titles

• 25% Communications/PR Director or Manager
• 18% Communications/PR Specialist or Coordinator
• 8% Admin Assistant
• 6% Social Media/Digital Communications & Website Manager
• 5% Marketing & Communications Director
• 4% Community Relations Director/Specialist
• 4% Teacher
• 3% Technology Coordinator
• 3% Marketing
• 3% Principal/Assistant Principal

So you are responsible for social media at your school or district. Awesome, but what is your official title? We had 62% of respondents have a direct tie to communications in their title. That is a majority, but it is important to note that 38% do not carry that relationship. That means that they instead carry titles like administrative assistant, teacher, technology coordinator, or principal. 

I feel like this helps normalize the fact that in many schools, there is not a specific role tied to communications. I wish there were! I truly believe in the value of good school communications, and it starts with having someone focused on it. But the truth is, in many small schools, there just isn’t a priority on this position with tight budgets and limited staffing.

 

Experience in School Communications

• Less than 1 year 13%
• 1-3 years 24%
• 3-5 years 22%
• 5 or more years 42%

We all started somewhere, and I wanted to see what kind of experience our respondents had when it came to social media for their school. I love to see that 42% have five or more years of experience. But it’s important to note that even those folks have struggles and are still learning when it comes to social media!

When you go to the other end and look at the new and newish folks, you see that 37% have less than three years of experience. And to think that most of that time was in the pandemic! Hats off to you, friends.

 

Social Media Platforms Used For Your School or District

• Facebook 98%
• Instagram 79%
• Twitter 74%
• YouTube 51%
• LinkedIn 37%
• Pinterest 5%
• Tik Tok 4%
• Snapchat 1%
• Other 5%

This is helpful, but it is also worthwhile to flip the percentages to know the number of schools NOT using certain channels.

• 99% are NOT using Snapchat
• 96% are NOT using TikTok
• 95% are NOT using Pinterest
• 63% are NOT using LinkedIn
• 49% are NOT using YouTube

So what does this mean for you? You better be using Facebook! It’s the number one channel for every school we serve. 

I also want you to know that it is OK to focus on just Facebook! Don’t add more channels if you’re not ready. If you are already overwhelmed, why would you add more to your plate?

Instagram falls in a strong second place and even beats out Twitter. This falls in line with what I see, too. We can connect with students and young parents on Instagram! 

 

Effectiveness Self Ranking

• Excellent 24%
• Good 60%
• Fair 14%
• Poor 2%

I really loved to see so many respondents rank themselves as Excellent – 24%. Now I’m not going out to judge every social media page out there to confirm or deny this rating, but I am truly glad that people feel confident in their social media efforts. The reasons that they ranked themselves high included:

• They listen to #SocialSchool4EDU. I believe that if you follow #SocialSchool4EDU and the strategies we teach, your social media will improve.
• They have received feedback from alumni, current and past teachers. This is a great indicator that you are doing something right!
• New candidates for employment positions comment on the social media. This is great, because social media is a tool for attracting talent to your school!
• They compare themselves against districts around them. This is another good metric to use. If you are posting more content, with great branding and good engagement, your social media is better!

In total, 84% ranked themselves as good or excellent. I’ve been doing social media for schools for nearly nine years. For the school I manage on a daily basis (yes – I actually manage Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for a school district, too) – I would rank us as good. There is always room for improvement, and I’m only as great as the content provided.

Out of all responses, only 16% ranked themselves as fair or poor. This is actually quite low considering 37% of respondents have been on the job of doing social media for less than three years. Good social media just takes time. When asked why they ranked themselves lower, some answers were:

• We need to post more frequently. Once a day on Facebook is the absolute minimum for posting frequency. 

• Social media is informational posts instead of celebrations. I totally agree with this assessment. Social media is not a bulletin board for upcoming events or notices about forms that need to be completed. It is meant to celebrate what is happening at the school!

• We do not have a good hierarchy of who posts when, what, or how. Systems are key to making social media effective.

Want to see some of the best? Check out our social media award winners from 2022 and 2021. This will give you a great standard to aspire to that would definitely meet my criteria for excellent!

 

The Biggest Challenge When It Comes to Social Media

• 30% Not Enough Time
• 20% Getting content sent in from staff
• 8% Quantity and quality of content
• 7% Equity among schools and within schools (each school and grade represented)
• 7% Trolls, Community opinion, navigating the negativity
• 7% Buy-in from staff and admin
• 6% Lack of communication about post-worthy things happening in schools and classrooms

I am not surprised at all by the top two struggles identified in this survey. I hear these often from social media managers I talk to. They don’t have enough time and they don’t receive enough content from staff. The other challenges are mentioned as well, but nothing shows up as often as those two items.

Can you relate to some of these specific responses?

• Time to take/collect/manage photos. With all other duties, it’s hard to find even 10 minutes a day to sit down and post. And then do I post the same thing on all platforms? I’m exhausted. 

• I do not believe every “follower” is truly seeing all of our posts… Hint – they definitely are NOT seeing every post! The algorithm plays into that. Here is a helpful article that shares 11 ways to improve your reach.

• Negative parents who make sweeping accusations

• It’s just me running the show at the district level, and it’s really hard to get principals, teachers, and even admin to share photos and info with me about fun activities. I’ve tried weekly emails, google forms and even talking to staff individually so they know they can invite me to cover an event or send me pictures after the fact. I can’t get them onboard. I know many of you can relate to this. You’ve tried many things on my list, but here is a recent blog I shared on “Tips for Getting More Social Media Stories.”

• Getting authentic content. Looking through all of our historical data, the content that has always done the best (even if it’s a potato-quality photo) is stuff sent into us by other people. This is a great observation! The true, from the heart stories of your students and staff will get way more reach versus some of the planned content you try to create.

Now we did have one concern shared that isn’t very typical. I think many of you would gladly trade in your problems for this one:

• Keeping up with content and sorting through it. I get sent so many pictures daily. My agreed-upon number of posts per week is 3-4, but I consistently post 5-7x, and I still can’t post it all, and that stresses me out. I appreciate every picture I receive, and I worry people will be offended if their pictures aren’t posted.

This blog is not meant to solve all of your issues at once, but I can promise more articles and podcasts in the future to address these concerns. And I can honestly say that the best way to combat most of these issues is to join our membership group. 

#SocialSchool4EDU offers a year-round program to support you in the work that you do for school social media. We offer weekly training, daily inspiration, and a community of school social media managers to help. Learn more here!

 

Focus Area for 2022-2023

• 45% Increase in engagement  
• 20% Post more frequently/consistently
• 9% Add/Use Instagram
• 7% Grow audience/following
• 6% Use stories/reels
• 5% Use more video content
• 5% Get more content from staff
• 5% Develop a SM calendar
• 5% More classroom celebrations/day-to-day activities
• 4% Add a platform(s)

What a great list of aspirations for the new school year! Based off of the last question on your biggest struggle, you would guess that somehow creating more time in your day would be on your list this year. But we all know that won’t happen. We only get 24 hours in a day and even though we may want to add to our team, that probably isn’t in the budget.

I loved seeing that 45% of respondents are focused on engagement. You get it – engagement is what matters most!! More engagement means more views. Asking simple questions is a great way to boost engagement. Here is a great list of 52 questions to pick from. This free PDF on 20 Calls to Action phrases may help as well. 

Posting more frequently and consistently was a solid second place response with 20% of respondents citing this as a goal. Getting more folks involved in sending content will help, as well as having a solid system when it comes to social media. 

Here are some full responses that you might relate to:

• Getting organized, scheduling ahead, and increasing engagement would be a bonus!
• Creating a social media calendar has been on my to-do list for a few years now. I hope to have time this summer to put one together. Creating a social media calendar is an activity we do every summer inside of our membership group. We offer many templates to choose from and help you plan ahead. If you want the details on what’s included in the membership group, click here!
• Increase engagement on Instagram with student contributors from the High School. I have been simply posting the same content to Facebook and Instagram and I want to do a better job differentiating and utilizing the platforms more effectively to reach the audience there. If this sounds like you, you should check out these helpful resources:
  • Blog – “Student Contributors for Social Media”
  • Blog – “Need Help with Social Media? Hire a Student Intern!”
  • Podcast – “Engaging Students as Content Creators with Christine Paik”
  • Podcast – “Student Interview: Meet High School Instagram Story Contributor, Annabelle Moon!” 

 

Tools/Training Used to Stay on Top of Social Media

• 59% #SocialSchool4EDU
• 14% State SPRA Chapters
• 11% NSPRA
• 10% Following other schools on social media
• 9% Webinars
• 6% Colleagues
• 6% Facebook Groups
• 6% Reading Articles/Newsletters
• 5% Conferences/PD
• 5% Podcasts
• 5% Observing Social Media
• 5% None

Since this survey was put out to the #SocialSchool4EDU audience, it makes sense that we are the number one source for tools and training to do your job in social media! We are committed to offering you so many ways to grow your skills and celebrate your school in bigger ways using social media. But there are other options out there and we encourage you to take them in as your schedule allows.

 

Specific #SocialSchool4EDU Tools Used

Since so many of you referenced the various ways that #SocialSchool4EDU helps you with social media, we thought we would layout the percentages of each. The items below are linked so you can check them out for yourself!

• 25% #SocialSchool4EDU in general
• 18% Membership
• 15% Newsletters/Emails (sign up here)
• 15% Webinars (most webinars happen inside of my membership group)
• 10% Blogs
• 9% Website
• 6% Podcast
• 3% Bootcamp (the bootcamps are now being incorporated into my membership group)
• 1% Challenges (the challenges happen inside of my membership group)

 

There you have it, our short but insightful survey results from 2022. Do you have questions that you wished we would have asked? Let me know, below!